MENDITATIONS ON SELF WORTH [You Can't Save Your Arse and Face at the Same Time]

Live art performance in four parts

The performance was conceived about a year ago with the title SALON DE REFUSES. The matter of the performance is the difficulty I have with rejection. The actual matter used in the performance is a collection of unsuccessful proposals and applications (not only mine). The Menditations are aesthetic procedures through which I sit with the matter, processing and transforming it.

They are:

1. Stitching margins of unsuccessful proposals and applications together
2. Making narratives: sitting with feelings of 'marginalisation', rejection, entitlement, denial, powerlessness, victim hood, revenge, not good enough
3. Knitting with dildos: fuck victim hood
4. Outfit: transforming limiting beliefs and attitudes, mining character.

It begins with me sending out many applications. all unsuccessful, many being ignored, over a number of years. With each application I was building more and more despondency, self doubt and harmful attitudes. For my own well being I needed to address this situation.

1) Stitching the margins of a collection of unsuccessful proposals documents, begins the process of facing feelings of marginalisation. When other people added there collection to mine my self pity began to lift. One collection is from a friend who had over 200 applications and 35 interviews in 3 years!

2) Making narrative, making yarn, sitting with the stories I make: stories of victim hood which reinforce feelings of not good enough, entitlement, powerlessness, rejection, revenge, self hatred.

3) Fuck victim hood; taking yarn [victim hood narrative/self pity] and processing limiting beliefs and attitudes, moving through of self pity and victim hood, mining character.

4) The outfit has two parts, hospital patients gown and the knitted identity mined from deepened character development. The gown (with a hand written [self/worth] print marks the healing process. A contributor of applications said that "....after 2.5 years [he] did feel super demoralised...It [took] an amazing amount of determination ...it tested my character and my belief in myself. And it made me stronger'.

The piece was performed at the opening of Woman's Work group show at Iziko South African National Gallery. The show exhibits works by artists using techniques traditionally associated with women.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Some writing for:
http://contemporaryperformance.com/

Menditations are aesthetic procedures which process matter, as in ‘what’s the matter?’ and the material that embodies it. The performance is in four parts:

1) Collecting and stitching the margins of unsuccessful applications and proposals (not only mine).

2) Making the yarn (eliciting the story/narrative) of the ‘marginalised’; ‘sitting-with’ uncomfortable feelings of rejection, marginalisation, entitlement, not-good-enough, self-pity and understanding the limiting attitudes which generate them.

3) Knitting the yarn with dildos; fuck victim-hood.

4) Wearing an outfit made from the knitting; identities emerging from the stories I tell myself.

The performance takes place in an exhibition entitled Woman’s Work [exhibiting work which employ techniques traditionally used by woman]. The show is in The South African National Gallery. The performance happens on and around a pedestal used for sculpture. Along with the knitted costume, I wear a hospital patient’s gown which flashes my ‘arse’.

The Audience is occupying the same space, at the same level. The procedures are banal, repetitive and loop in hour cycles, over 3 hours.

As an artist my inclusion/exclusion into the ‘art world’ has been fraught with pain and suffering. This piece inspects the matter and interrogates my motives. The piece is paying penitence: a public humiliation; admitting to indulgence in limiting attitudes and attempting redemption by processing and reaching out to others who have had similar experiences. My face is saved by showing my arse to the academy and my arse is saved by dissolving my face into the shaman’s in order to do the Work.